09 September, 2006

::Cue Exasperated Sigh::

How is it that, in a room of 25 – 30 local bloggers, nobody is liveblogging this? Come on, gang. A local station is reaching out. It’s worth writing about.

How is it? Okay. I'll tell you how it is.

Much is made in all quarters about this New Media Revolution and how Everyman can storm the Bastille of old media. Yet what Mr. Safran and those of his ilk fail to realise is that not every blogger owns a laptop.

The way I see it, 25-30 of us were up early on a Saturday morning, taking time away from our families and busy lives to continue our strong partnership journey with WKRN. Yes, WKRN was reaching out. Yet the Nashville blogosphere has always reached back enthusiastically. At last count 5 of us blogged the event postmortem. On our hard-to-schlepp-to-the-GEC desktops at home.

I've heard both Terry Heaton and Mike Sechrist make much of the rising power of Citizen media. They've always seemed to respect us--if not our current positions, our potential. However it's inevitable that most people, like Mr. Safran, who are entrenched in Established Media adopt a bit of a patronising attitude toward the very people they ostensibly celebrate.

It takes all kinds to make a revolution. And some kinds won't have a laptop.

I've heard plenty of criticisms of me before. But "entrenched in the Established Media" is a new one.

I also think there is a difference between being critical (which I certainly was) and being patronizing, which I certainly am not. No, not everyone has laptops. But I bet some of that crowd does. It was a liveblog-worthy event.

can someone explain to me why being able to read comments about an event during the event is superior to reading about the event AFTER the event is over, when the writer/commenter has had time to digest and analyze the event?

I think your (Kat's) digested thoughts are far superior to anyone attempting to pay attention and blog at the same time without 'processing'.

Nothing wrong with live-blogging..I just don't get the point or the superiority of it, unless there is some big news-worthy event taking place that people NEED to know about as the news is breaking.

The blog-meet-up was fun and provided fodder for thought, but I don't think there was anything resembling 'breaking news'.

Unless your name is 'Sports Guy' and you make a living live-blogging or you are live-blogging your family's Thanksgiving..I'm not sure I really care!